


Sharp Point in the Middle

by shelter



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Finding one's tribe, Implied Shannon/Mary, Pre-Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25711117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shelter/pseuds/shelter
Summary: The second time Sister Lilith gets stabbed she looks up to see the hair-lashed face of the halo-bearer, Sister Shannon.orA meditation on Sister Lilith.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	Sharp Point in the Middle

**Author's Note:**

> Includes spoilers for certain key plot developments in Season 1.  
>  **  
>  _TW: inter-religious violence._  
> **

_"The apparently unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life. A life without contradiction is only half a life; or else a life in the Beyond, which is destined only for angels. But God loves human beings more than the angels."  
_\- Carl Jung

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**1.**

The first time Sister Lilith is stabbed she feels the force the blade tearing through rib and muscle. The adults around her descend into a blood-crazed monsoon of violence. She bounces off one of her parents' retainers, her nose smashing to earth.

There's a shot. A shout. The sounds of limbs being plucked. The very adult disagreement concerns her family's church, which will be unfortunately re-dedicated as a rival house of worship. The enemies of the Faith are unwilling to recognise her family's history of service. They're willing to kill to keep their spoils. Spoils that are hers. Her inheritance. 

Slugs of her blood and bile soak the now-carpeted floor of the sanctuary. She drags herself into a mandala of light flowing in from the windows. Above, crucifix and calligraphy warp together on the walls. A white Madonna looks down indifferently as she sinks into the puddle of her family's bloody heritage. She tries to hold the lady's gaze. If this is the one last thing she sees before everything ends, she will be saved. All she can do is stare until the images before her diffuse in a heavenly flux of light.

* * *

**2.**

Later, when she takes on assignments for the Order of the Cruciform Sword's Levant Branch, she remembers her near-death on sacred ground. So she hunts her attackers. Just as her faith is singular, the enemies of her faith must be singularly made to not-exist. Only then can there be peace, she believes.

She burns their shrines. She leaves their bones, decalcified chew toys, to the dogs of the field. She infiltrates their headquarters. She fights her way through until she corners the one who stabbed her. Only for her would-be killer to be a village girl, freckles splashed across her face, face sheathed in a headscarf – just like her.

"We are from two sides of the same mountain," she says, her voice as soft as chambering of a bullet. "Who's right is it to decide whose houses of worship belong to whom?"

"God will decide," Sister Lilith responds.

Their movements are mirror image of each other's. Her adversary is a savage ghost of moving punches and blocks. For a moment, as she tires, Sister Lilith feels the phantom pain for her wound straining against her ribs. But her training prevails: she carves a vertical slash into the bottom of her enemy's throat – once, twice – until it becomes a rough bowl of red mush.

Her enemy mouths her last words into the ground: "We will – meet again."

"I don't think so."

She gathers all their bodies, like constrictions of rotten fruit deflating in the snow, and burns them all night. When dawn breaks, she scatters them over the mountains, adding to the grey haze choking her homeland of church spires and minarets.

* * *

**3.**

The second time Sister Lilith gets stabbed she looks up to see the hair-lashed face of the halo-bearer, Sister Shannon. She's at her limit: even as the halo bathes their forms in gold light, Sister Shannon can't push her advantage. The training stick drills into Sister Lilith's shoulder, until it shatters, snapping her shoulder out of place.

Sister Lilith knows she's fortunate. She's escaped the shitpit of war for a new country, a new vocation at the OCS's European academy. But she didn't trade the knife of her former life for the blunt force of the theology of restraint. She didn't overcome the tragedy of everyday reality, just to read about the history of inter-religious warfare in books.

And Sister Shannon, with her eyes shadow-lit with desire and prayer-curved fists, is the antithesis of everything she's experienced – halo-bearer or not. Sister Shannon, who now flexes the wings of her shoulder blades when she's finished with sparring, and now _apologises_ for going too hard. She extends a hand to help. Sister Lilith slaps it away. Fixing her shoulder back into place, she lets the pain wash over her and shock her nerves into compliance. If Sister Shannon can't be the one symbol of the church's resolve, then she has to steel herself to.

"Again," she tells Sister Shannon.

* * *

**4.**

"What you've got is a gift from God to–"

"No, the halo is a curse."

"Come on. Don't talk like that."

Two days before Sister Shannon's death, Sister Lilith observes this conversation between her team leader and 'Shotgun' Mary. They're in the armoury, retrieving their weapons. Bars of florescent light carve Sister Shannon's face into half-shadow, and their voices echo in the corners of the vault. A fan stirs the stale air of tension as the two sisters talk.

Her sisterly team is the best in the OCS. She knows – no, she believes this. Each of them has her role and place, and their actions are led by the higher power of purpose. Being one of many moving parts amplifies her purpose – as long as more enemies die by her hand, she's content.

But lately Sister Shannon has become – indecisive. She sees the way a blush of crimson leaches its way down Sister Shannon's neck, and the expressive muscularity of Mary's gestures in her company. She knows she's seeing something not meant for everyone's eyes.

"Give them a moment," Sister Beatrice says, her voice a fortress of calm.

The bullets won't load themselves. The blades won't be sharpened by the grace of the divine. Still, Sister Lilith accedes. Whatever helps the team to be efficient, to eliminate the enemies of the Faith.

But the hundreds of racked rifles, like upturned tongues, would argue her point for her: the halo is neither a gift or a curse. It's a weapon. If Sister Shannon can't wield it well, then someone else needs to be allowed to pull the trigger.

* * *

**5.**

The third time Sister Lilith gets stabbed she's close, so close–

She's dug a valley around the quivering flesh in the new halo-bearer's back. She's almost closed the circle, connecting her to the one most important thing in her life. Then, Mary reappears. And the monster after, a spectral torrent of muscle and fire. As the power of the halo crests, she remembers everything from her blood-drenched past leading up to this moment. Sword in hand. Halo ripe for the picking. The enemy arrayed before her. She rushes the monster–

And feels the pain churning through her abdomen. So bright it wipes her vision clean. The last thing she sees is Ava screaming.

She doesn't know where she's sent. All she remembers is the grey chromium void of the other side. In the middle, her would-be murderer, the giver-of-her-first stab wound, confronts her. Her face is halo-ed with light from below. Her eyes are smudged pools of black that disappear into infinity. When she takes Sister Lilith's hands, she sees her own hands ignite, gloved in flame.

* * *

**6.**

So, now she waits. For tests. For recovery. For Sister Camila to brew more tea. Then, later, for good news from the Vatican.

Sometimes, the furious force of a headache pushes her vision to confuse the sunbeams slashing through her room as trapdoors to hell. Sometimes, incandescent with fever, she sees claws where her fingers should be. Sometimes, she thinks Ava's caution in her presence is because she can see the chunks of foreign flesh she sheds, leaving her untethered from earth, faith, her self– 

"You know this doesn't change anything," says Mary.

"You're still one of us, whether you like it or not." Sister Beatrice this time, her voice like a reassuring bird, perching on her shoulder.

"And if you don't want to talk about what happened, at least drink more tea," is what Sister Camila tells her every other hour.

"But what if–"

"Tea."

Sometimes, when she's alone, she corners her image in the mirror. The corona of her unkempt hair is beginning to bleach in streaks of bone-white. Bags of dark skin cradle her bloodshot eyeballs, immune to sleep since her – trip to the other side. Her wound is still a swollen cave of gore-coloured skin, an abyss of pain.

Sometimes, in the mirror, she sees her would-be murderer, back in her family's church, back against the images of her halo-bearing forebears. Sometimes, she's wearing her face.

* * *

**7.**

Only later, when she's face-to-face with the Thief and his otherworldly powers does she feel it. A pulsing little organ deep in her chest: fear's talons gripping her heart. She's never feared death, never feared her wounds, and definitely not her enemies. But watching her sisters thrash the Thief, she's afraid of what would happen once he turns on them.

She watches wraith-possessed bystanders dogpile Mary. She sees Sisters Beatrice and Camila's fists and arrows deflect from the Thief. She sees Ava crash into the ground. Her sisters fall. There's no ultimate weapon. No redemption. The enemy, after Ava has burnt out the halo's powers, is still standing.

So Sister Lilith cloaks herself in her own fear. She calls upon in the history of images fusing her own head – sacred and profane, cross and calligraphy, angel and demon – two girls facing each other on two sides of the same mirror finally become one – until she feels fire stab her through skin. Until she buries the Thief with under the stones of the grand lie he's helped to prop up.

"Lilith?"

"You can stop now. He's gone."

"Come on, get up. Let's go."

When she comes to, her sisters are still there. The earth around her craters with light. Nothing else has changed, though. Sister Beatrice's reassuring voice is still a bridge across the chasm of what she is, and what she means to them. Mary is still Mary, scarred and heavy hand on her wrist anchoring her to reality. Sister Camila's smiling into crescents of relief, mixing tears and happiness. And Ava, the halo-bearer who usurped her, extends a hand to lift her up.

This time, she takes it.

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_**END** _

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties with Sister Lilith's family history, intentions and her 'powers'. Written in two days after finishing the series.


End file.
